State of the State of Colorado

Anne Miller, AICP is the Director of the Colorado Resiliency Office (CRO) in the Department of Local Affairs. The CRO supports local governments in building stronger, safer, and more resilient communities. She has over 25 years of community development experience in the public, private, and non-profit sectors. Anne has worked in Colorado and across the nation to build adaptive and sustainable communities. She has a Master’s degree in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a founding member of the American Planning Association’s Sustainable Communities Division. Anne serves as an ex-officio member of the Colorado Wildfire Resiliency Code Board and a board member of the Colorado Natural Disaster Mitigation Enterprise.

Brian Lewandowski is the Executive Director of the Business Research Division at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder. Brian provides regional business and economic information and education, including economic and revenue forecasts, policy studies, economic impact analyses, and data workshops. He is the Past President of the Association for University Business and Economic Research and the Denver Association of Business Economists, and contributes to the Governor’s Revenue Estimating Advisory Committee.

Neal Marquez serves as the State Demographer with the State Demography Office at DOLA, where he analyzes Colorado’s changing population dynamics and develops projections that guide infrastructure, housing, workforce, and economic planning across the state. His work informs state and local leaders on how demographic trends shape communities and inform place-based strategies tailored to the unique needs and opportunities of regions throughout Colorado.

Neal holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and a Master of Public Health from the University of Washington, with a focus on statistical methods and migration. Prior to joining DOLA, he worked with state and local governments, nonprofits, and research organizations conducting demographic analysis and applied research to support community planning and long-term development initiatives.

Robin Kniech served three terms as an At-large Denver City Councilwoman and remains actives in state and national networks training local elected officials. She is a lecturer with the University of Colorado Denver’s Center for New Directions in Politics and Policy, where she teaches graduate courses in affordable housing and public policy. Robin also provides policy and strategy consulting to elected officials, local governments, nonprofits and community clients through Leading Progress, LLC.  As an elected official, Robin expanded access to and funding for affordable housing, spurred innovations in resolving homelessness, and passed policies on economic mobility and sustainability. She championed the passage of two crucial, permanent funding streams for affordable housing and reducing homelessness which, by 2030, will provide nearly a billion dollars to house and stabilize Denver families. Robin was also a leader in moving the city toward more equitable land use and zoning. She has published a series of white papers and Denver Post columns on the intersections between Colorado’s 2024 land use reform legislation and housing affordability, including analysis of ADUs, Transit Oriented Communities and Inclusionary Zoning. She is a frequent media commentator and is author of a substackcolumn heavily focused on housing and land use, Robin Kniech’s New Take. Robin has a law degree and lives in Denver with her wife and teenage son.